Well a bit to far from me, and i am in the middle of a intensive project.

What i find more interesting is how Frank did only post 2 messages in 10 years. I hope you don*t stay this "quiet" in the future! The little sorcerer's apprentice (Ken's avatar) was very busy around here, destroying our deepest fears and rising our faith in our favorite 3d app.

I must agree with the majority of comments here, and I too sometimes feel cheated.

Since the addition of the slate editor and the graphite modelling tools, not a lot has really been added.

But the most annoying thing for me is when Autodesk put aesthetics above usability. Take the new caddies, what a complete waste of time. OK they look nice with rounded edges, but they are harder to use, read and understand. In previous versions, when you did something like "connect" in edit poly mode, the first figure would be highlighted so you could type the number, then press tab and type again, etc, now you have to click with the mouse. It doesn't sound like much but when you're working with it everyday it soon becomes more than just annoying.

When autodesk bought Mudbox, I was hoping perhaps this would be integrated into Max, much like they did with PolyBoost. Instead they attempt to make it easier from one product to another. Vray incorporated RT when it moved from 1.5 to 2, and that made upgrading a no-brainer for a lot of people. Autodesk should learn from Chaos Group, and start listening to what people want, not what they think people want.

I must admit on more than one occasion I have considered changing to something else, and perhaps it's only the fantastic plugins for Max which keep me here.

Originally Posted by DeanPunchard:
I must admit on more than one occasion I have considered changing to something else, and perhaps it's only the fantastic plugins for Max which keep me here.

Personal opinion :
I used 3ds from the dos days up until 3dsmax v8 , after that I've had enough of both Autodesk and 3dsmax's blackbox way of working. I switched to Houdini and never looked back, not even once. I know H isn't for everyone, but the need for external plugins and scripts have been deprecated in favour of a more generalized approach to cg problem solving. Not to mention the way Sesi listens to their customers.

I have had a crack at Houdini in the past and found it quite enjoyable to use. But never had the time to invest fully switching to it. I will be attending the MUG in feb and hopefully will get to chat to a few on this thread.
I think a bit of blood is in the water for Autodesk atm. What with Clarisse, the foundry and c4d getting better every release. I think its time real work got done under the hood, having a look at stuff that does not take 3 months to intergrate but is developed over the span of a year or more and is a game changer like pflow/skin/hair as when they released.
I am still o'k with max atm but I have been learning C4d for the last year and I will take a longer look at Houdini this year too.

__________________*(GOZER)-During the third reconciliation of the last of the Meketrex Supplicants, it chose the form of a giant SLOAR...

I've been a couple of times and, yeah it does tend towards that, although they had a cool character animator/rigger a while back.

It pretty much sums up what I think will happen.

Slow development of character animation/vfx (or introduce bugs) features so that those in that particular industry increasingly shift away (or stick with what they have), which skews CIP/User feedback to favour arch-viz, and it just progresses towards that, as scripters/plugin makers who target the VFX side find that it's not just worth developing for Max, unless it's something that arch-viz can use.

I genuinely don't know how you lot don't go insane using max. Spend the time to look and learn another application if you don't already. This is not Trolling - just a genuine astonishment at how bad Max is to use now. I spent the summer on a TV ad using the latest Max and it's a horrible mish mash of plugins awkward interfaces that clash with each other, hidden settings and and integration.

I've been using Max since v.1 ( 3ds r3!! ) and Have made the switch to Cinema 4D. Looked at maya too, and while much better - I got a much better deal from Maxxon and have had far better support since.

Partly as I jumped ship to OSX when Vista came out and Partly because the kind of work I do requires a faster work flow. One thing Max is not good at.

C4D boots in about 3 seconds - Fully ready to go.
C4D Interface is completely customisable.
I've not found one single thing I cannot do in this than I could in Max. I am sure this is subjective.
Multiple render setups. Instant switching...

Oh and here's the biggy... Multiple scenes open in one go in ONE app with COPY and PASTE between them. How futuristic!

**edit** Even bigger... you can render and carry on working, with little detriment to performance or render time.

The main problem is max is a beast of a application that has sucking Plugin's like a black hole and none seem to work well together. Containers, Slate, Modelling tools. I think that almost all the other pro 3d apps are better these days. The said Max's modelling tools are far superior to C4D and as I stated I have to use it now and again depending on the client but definitely feel that Autodesk have let it slip into disrepair.

Originally Posted by strangerthings:I genuinely don't know how you lot don't go insane using max. Spend the time to look and learn another application if you don't already.

The world doesn`t revolve around you and your problems alone. For me
3dsmax does exactly what i want and need, so why should i invest in learning a different
application? 3dsmax2013 PU6 here is very stable and fast. (Probably because i didn`t hack it to death with 10000 plugins and scripts..).
I don`t think 3dsmax need to work for erveryone. It just have to work for me. That`s why i am
using it.
And why on earth are people constantly trying to convert me to C4D or blender ?
I don`t get it.

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